Elisa Orlandi was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 singer who was active at major opera house

Opera house

An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...

s in Italy from 1829 until her sudden death in 1834. Possessing a wide vocal range

Vocal range

Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study...

 with a significant amount of coloratura

Coloratura

Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...

 facility, she tackled roles from both the mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano

A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

 and soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 repertoires. She is best remembered today for portraying the role of Giovanna Seymour (Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...

) in the world premiere of Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

's Anna Bolena

Anna Bolena

Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...

in 1830.

Biography

Born in Macerata

Macerata

Macerata is a city and comune in central Italy, the capital of the province of Macerata in the Marche region.The historical city center is located on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza rivers. It consisted of the Picenes city named Ricina, then, after the romanization, Recina and Helvia Recina...

, Orlandi's family moved to Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 soon after her birth. She studied singing in that city with Nardelli and made her professional debut there in 1829 at the age of 18. Later that year she made successful appearances in Milan and Rome. On 24 November 1829 she portrayed Isaura to the Amenaide of Giuditta Pasta

Giuditta Pasta

Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta , born in Saronno, Italy, was a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers, to whom the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas was compared.-Studies and career:...

 in Gioachino Rossini's Tancredi

Tancredi

Tancredi is a melodramma eroico in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's play Tancrède...

at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Teatro Comunale di Bologna

The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy, and is one of the most important opera venues in Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season....

 in the presence of the composer.

Orlandi made her debut at the Teatro Regio di Parma

Teatro Regio di Parma

Teatro Regio di Parma is a famous 19th century opera house and opera company in Parma, Italy. The theatre was originally known as the Teatro Ducale....

 on 6 February 1830 as Fiorilla in Rossini's Il turco in Italia

Il turco in Italia

Il turco in Italia is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani...

. While in Parma she also sang in several concerts at the court of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma

Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma

Marie Louise of Austria was the second wife of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French and later Duchess of Parma...

. She made several appearances at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan later that year, including the house's first stagings of Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...

's Il crociato in Egitto

Il crociato in Egitto

Il crociato in Egitto is an opera in two acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer, with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. It was first performed at La Fenice theatre, Venice on 7 March, 1824. The part of Armando was sung by the famous castrato, Giovanni Battista Velluti; the opera was probably the last ever written...

(Palmide), Rossini's Le comte Ory

Le comte Ory

Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...

(Alice), Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira

Aureliano in Palmira

Aureliano in Palmira is an operatic dramma serio in two acts written by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto in which the librettist was credited only by the initials "G. F. R." The libretto has generally been attributed to Giuseppe Felice Romani, but sometimes to the otherwise...

(Zenobia), and Donizetti's Olivo e Pasquale

Olivo e Pasquale

Olivo e Pasquale is a melodramma giocoso, a romantic comedy opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Jacopo Ferretti wrote the Italian libretto after Simeone Antonio Sografi's play.- Roles :...

(Isabella). She appeared at the Teatro Carcano in Milan as Giovanna Seymour

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...

 in the world premiere of Donizetti's Anna Bolena

Anna Bolena

Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...

on 26 December 1830. She later returned to that house in 1831 to portray Metilde in Donizetti's Gianni di Calais

Gianni di Calais

Gianni di Calais is a melodramma semiserio, a "semi-serious" opera in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti , from a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni, based on Jean de Paris by Louis-Charles Caignes....

.

In the fall of 1832 Orlandi appeared in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 as Adina in the Teatro Carignano's first staging of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore

L'elisir d'amore

L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...

. On 2 January 1833 she portrayed Eleonora in the world premiere of Donizetti's Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo

Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo

Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo is a melodramma, or opera, in three acts by composer Gaetano Donizetti. Jacopo Ferretti wrote the Italian libretto after Miguel de Cervantes's novel Don Quixote. The opera premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome, Italy on 2 January 1833...

at the Teatro Valle

Teatro Valle

The Teatro Valle is a theatre and former opera house in Rome, Italy.Commissioned by the Capranica family, the architect Tommaso Morelli designed the theatre which was built in 1726. It was inaugurated with the staging of the tragedy Matilde by Simon Falconio Pratoli...

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. She returned to the Teatro della Canobbiana for several more appearances later that year, including Joseph Weigl

Joseph Weigl

Joseph Weigl , was an Austrian composer and conductor.The son of Joseph Franz Weigl , the principal cellist in the orchestra of the Esterházy family, he was born in Eisenstadt and studied music under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri...

's L'imboscata, the premiere of Cesare Pugni

Cesare Pugni

Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...

's Il contrabbandiere, and the house's first stagings of Giovanni Pacini

Giovanni Pacini

Giovanni Pacini was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. Pacini was born in Catania, Sicily, the son of the buffo Luigi Pacini, who was to appear in the premieres of many of Giovanni's operas...

's Il falegname di Livonia (Catterina) and De Moyana's Emma di Fondi (Emma). She also sang the roles of Adina, Alice, and Carlotta (Saverio Mercadante

Saverio Mercadante

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of...

's Elisa e Claudio) at the Teatro della Canobbiana that year.

In 1834 Orlandi suddenly collapsed and died backstage at the opera house in Rovigo

Rovigo

Rovigo is a town and comune in the Veneto region of North-Eastern Italy, the capital of the eponymous province. -Geography:...

 just prior to going on stage as Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma

Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...

. Everything had seemed to point to a brilliant opera career for the young singer who was just 23 years old at the time of her death.